From My Point of View

Just a bit of reading about my point of view!

Wow! What can I say! It was nothing short of fantastic!

Some of the highlights in chronological order, as best as I recall:

Thursday afternoon, after the first training session, we had a break. It was very hot and everyone was pretty drained. I had already needed to take a break and had re-hydrated about 15 minutes earlier when I encountered Matt, a Godan. Matt is one of those individuals that has given of his time and skills unselfishly for so long. I’ve savored every bit of time I’ve had working with him. I’m not sure how to describe what happened for the next ten or so minutes. It wasn’t really sparring, more of a sticky hands pushing exercise. Anyone watching wouldn’t have seen much, just a couple of sweaty guys pushing at each other, moving our arms and circling around. Both of us hit the floor at least once. I learned a great deal about feeling out one’s opponent, controlling arms, moving to the side, redirecting forces, controlling center, and evading and working out of holds. It was both exhausting and exhilarating and will be one of many highlights from the seminar.

What a great international event! In addition to covering most of North America, we had individuals from Russia, Italy, Israel, Australia, Okinawa, and Argentina. I had some great workouts with one of the Israeli members, he passed his Shodan test on Thursday. Jessica made friends with one of the Argentinians, getting a lot of pointers on her kata. In addition, he presenting four of us with patches from their organization.

Our dojo had two people testing, Nate passed for Sandan and Dan passed for Shodan.

Kata tournament. Wow! Full of excitement all the way around. I was delighted to have two students participating in the tournament this year. We started with the Youth, divided into four divisions. My daughter was in Division 3, performing Pinan Nidan. She executed the kata well with no errors, though lacking in the ‘zip’ needed to move forward. My only other student finished in second place in Division 2, performing Kihon Kata 4 with precision to take the second place trophy. I worked the organization, lining the kids up, insuring they had the correct colored belt on and moving them to the starting place. Lots of help over there and the kids did great, both in the execution of their katas and keeping themselves under control while waiting their turn.

The adult division had lots of my friends and seniors in it. Both Jessica and Deborah Rose participated in the Women’s division. Deborah received a certificate of Excellent Results! The winner was Laura Chartier in a close finish over Sucheta Shoha. The Men’s division had both the Godans from my dojo, Randy Hall and Mike Jankovich. Randy took second place! My daughter was not entirely thrilled with sitting there through the entire thing, but it was interesting.

Meeting Taba Sensei, 10th Dan in Shogen Ryu was pretty neat. He and six of his students provided a nice demonstration of their kata and kobudo. While the Naihanchi kata was very similar to our version, their Chinto was dramatically different, though there were similarities in the execution. They also participated in the Wharton Center Demonstration.

Fearless Woman Kata – Roberto Curtis of the Austrian Dojo conducted a Women’s Self Defense seminar during the open training. His foundation was a kata he developed to teach his daughters how to defend themselves. It was pretty simple and highlighted some of the key elements of self defense. I was glad that my daughter was able to participate and learn this sequence!

The Wharton Center demo was terrific. Back stage we warmed up, stretched and talked. At one point, the 7th Dans gathered on the practice stage. They lined up and began a kata, within a few moves, the entire place went quiet, watching the ten men move through the sequence fully in tune with each other. The cheers and applause at the end was deafening, and I was proud that Menders Sensei was one of them. Truly inspirational! We were truly fortunate to be number two on the program, allowing us to move into the audience early to watch the rest of the wonderful demonstrations.

The end of the program had the Master presentations. The 7th Dans presenting their kata for the crowd. Tsumori Sensei did Kusanku and Nakayama Sensei performed Tei Sho. Miyazato Sensei performed Koryu Passai Kata. Taba Sensei performed Wankan Kata. Iha Sensei then brought the house to their feet with the presentation of Matsumora Passai.

Sunday morning training session was surprisingly well attended. And it was a terrific workout lead by Iha Sensei. He took us through the basics.

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